As massive storms rage across Earth, PetroDragonic Apocalypse shifts focus to the International Space Station where a crew of humans watch the destruction from afar, unable to help in any way — “Converge” is their viewpoint of the apocalypse. The song connects to the rest of the album using motifs and concepts such as the first verse of “Dragon”, and the belief in “Motor Spirit” being the thing that propelled the station into orbit in the first place. Musically the song is one of the most brutal, with chugging guitars and extensive double bass drumming that expand into massive choruses featuring Ambrose on vocals. As the song goes on, the band experiments with new riffs and rhythms before exploding into a final, twisting section that ends with a dark reprise of the song’s intro.
The history of “Converge” starts with the release of Demos Vol. 4: Music To Die To on July 15th, 2022. Among the many rough outlines and unused tracks was a fast thrash metal piece with a weird time signature called “Uncolonize.” The demo is much shorter than the final track, and only features a take on the ending section (starting at 4:07) with some missing compositional elements and an added lower-pitched breakdown. Later that year, the demo was used as walk on music on 2022-08-02 at St. Michael’s Fortress in Sibenik. In April of 2023 fans noticed that the song’s title had been changed from “Uncolonize” to “Converge (Demo).”
After being teased during a performance of “Evil Death Roll” on 2023-05-28 at the Boston Calling Music Festival, “Converge” made its live debut and became the second song from PetroDragonic Apocalypse to be heard in its entirety by fans (the first being “Gila Monster”). It would then appear at most stops on the band’s 2023 residency tour.
The studio version of “Converge” was released as the third song on PetroDragonic Apocalypse on June 16th, 2023, with the band uploading a video of Cavs, Joey and Stu waking Ambrose up to the song on their social media to celebrate. For the Barcelona Gizzverse Record Fair on 2023-08-24, the song was made the b-side of a limited 7” single for “Supercell.” The song has been referenced a few times in other Gizzard tracks, such as on PetroDragonic Apocalypse where the chant at 3:28 is reprised for the first verse of “Dragon.”
Later that year The Silver Cord adapted “Converge” on the track “Set” by using a riff from the song’s outro (4:59) in part of the song’s main melody. The extended version of that track also features the word “converge” repeated like it is on the original song.
The song was later referenced on the poster for 2024-08-15.
“Converge” was originally played on its own, but later changed to fit the album’s track listing with a transition into “Witchcraft” from 2023-08-12 onwards (though it first happened on 2023-06-08).